Share this article

‘Local initiatives have included slow-closing doors and bin lids, use of ear plugs for patients, bleeps set to vibrate and telephones with their volume reduced.

‘There are also simple signs telling people it’s night-time and patients are trying to sleep.’

In March, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals emailed all staff telling them to wear shoes with soft soles at night and to only talk behind closed doors.

In March, Royal Sussex County Hospital (above) emailed all staff telling them to wear shoes with soft soles at night and to only talk behind closed doors. It followed a similar initiative at Western Sussex hospitals

It followed a similar initiative at Western Sussex hospitals the previous year which had resulted in a drop in complaints about noise from patients.

Bethann Siviter, a nurse from the RCN’s South Birmingham RCN branch, who suffers from a chronic condition which means she is often in hospital, said: ‘I can tell you the bane of my existence is (nurses saying) ‘you should have seen what they were doing during the day...’, ‘oh the security guards are just coming by we should have a chat with them’ - they’re really loud.

‘How can I trust a nurse to help me with my pain if she is too clueless to know that when I’m sick in bed the last thing I want to hear is ‘if you go down to the canteen can you get me two bacon sarnies?’ - that’s the last thing you want to hear when you are in bed.”

Maura Buchanan, the former president of the RCN said: ‘The source of most complaints I ever received as a manager were about nurses talking too loud and even listening to the radio at night, waking patients up for observations, which sometimes you have to do but sometimes you don’t, even waking patients up to give them sleeping tablets.